Beeline accused of plagiarising

The Russian mobile operator (aka OAO Vympelkom) has been found guilty of rather shameless plagiarizing, so Beeline is now busy deleting all the copies of the compromising ad from online resources, Newsru.com reports.

The offending video clip advertising the company’s prices turned out to be a copy of Oren Lavie’s Her Morning Elegance, a Grammy nominee. According to NEWSru Israel, the two clips’ plots are different, but the style and the performance of Beeline’s ad bear very strong resemblance to those of Oren Lavie.

The mobile operator claims the Israeli singer’s clip was only an inspiration for their ad, but some of the ad’s episodes (like the one with a scarf flying towards a girl and tying itself round her neck) make one question the company’s sincerity.

In the end, Vympelkom was made to remove its ad from the TV channels and tried to eliminate any remaining traces of it on the Internet. YouTube, for instance, removed the clip and placed an apology instead. The note says the video is no longer available for copyright reasons.